Wrist watch having a push-button

ABSTRACT

A wrist watch having two externally operating members, at least one of which is a push-button, in which said push-button is provided on the side surface of a case between the 7:30 and 8:30 positions of a dial and the other one of said externally operating members is provided on the side surface of said case opposite to said push-button but at a location deviating from the position squarely opposite to said push-button with respect to the center of said case.

Yasuda United States Patent 191 [451 Jan. 8, 1974 r [75] Inventor:

[73] Assignee: Citizen Watch Co., Ltd., Tokyo,

Japan 22 Filed: Oct. 12, 1972 21 Appl. No.: 297,150

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data Schneiter 58/74 X Spadini 522/575 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 350,932 1/1961 Switzerland 58/74 Primary Examiner-George H. Miller, Jr. Attorney-Ladas, Parry, Von Gehr, Goldsmith &

Deschamps H H [57] ABSTRACT A wrist watch having two externally operating members, at least one of which is a push-button, in which said push-button is provided on the side surface of a case between the 7:30 and 8:30 positions of a dial and the other one of said externally operating members is provided on the side surface of said case opposite to said push-button but at a location deviating from the position squarely opposite to said push-button with respect to the center of said case.

3 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures WRIST WATCH :-HAVING- A PUSH-BUTTON This inventionrelates to a cell-operative timepiece having two externally operating members, at least one of which is;a push-button, 'and more specifically to a cell-operative wrist watch of the type described in which one of the externally operating members is, for example, a stem used for hand setting or the like and the other one of them is, for example, a push-button used for one-touch correction of the'hour, minute and second hands or for calendar correction.

Push-buttons have heretofore been used in chronographs or calendar timepieces but these push-buttons are located in the vicinity of the stem, namely adjacent the 2 or 4 oclock position of the dial. With such arrangement, since the stem and push-button are so close to each other, a setting lever, a yoke and gears of the watch movement which are operated by the stem, and levers which are operated by the push-button, are concentrated to a portion of a case, so that the construction of the watch movement becomes complicated at said portion and many problems are encountered in the design and manufacture of the watch and in the effort of reducing the thickness of the watch movement and hence in the design of the watch case. For this reason, it is preferable that the externally operating members such as the stem and push-button are spaced apart from each'ot her to the possible extent.

Further, it is not entirely satisfactory that the pushbutton is only spaced from the stem, but easiness in operation of these members and the appearance of the product watch must be taken into account. In this respect, the appearance of the conventional time-pieces of the type described gives an unbalanced feeling as their operating members are concentratively provided on one side of the case. From the viewpoint of easiness of operation, a push-button provided near the 2 o'clock 'position of the dial is satisfactory in its location but a push-button provided near the 4 oclock position of the dial cannot be said as being easy to operate, because when a wrist watch having a push-button at such a location is worn on the left hand wrist, the operation of said push-button requires for the right hand to be extended around the other side of'thewrist watch with respect to said push-botton.

In order to obviate such defect of the prior art wrist watches, the present invention has for its object the provision of a wrist watch having two externally operable members, in which one of said members, e.g. the stem, is located near the 3 oclock position of the dial and the other one of them, i.e. a push-button, is located between the 7:30 and 8:30 position of the dial so as to space it apart from said stem and render it easy to operate, and which, therefore, has a balanced appearance.

Now, the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings as applied to an electronic wrist watch. ln'the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view for explaining an embodiment of the invention, showing the arrangement of ing and closing of a power switch are effected, and a push-button between the 7:30 and 8:30 positions (at the 8 oclock position in the embodiment shown, of the dial, by which the positions of the hour, minute and second hands are corrected in one-touch operation. Further, the case 1 has oblique surfaces 1a, 1b formed on both sides of :the back side thereof.

In FIG. 1, the main components of the watch movement are perspectively shown, and reference numeral 4 designates a watch plate, 5a cell disposed in the space between the oblique surfaces 1a, 1b of the case 1 as viewed from the upper side of said case, and 6 a balance similarly disposed in the space between the oblique surfaces 1a, lb as viewed from the upper side of the case 1 and at a substantially diametrically opposite position of the case with respect to the cell 5.

Reference numeral 7 designates a front train wheel of the watch, 8 a balance support, 9 an electronic circuit block for driving the watch, and 9a a coil included in said electronic circuit block 9.

A backside mechanism 10 comprising elements to be operated by the stem 2 and a backside train wheel is arranged in partially superimposed relation to the electronic circuit block 9. Such superimposed arrangement does not adversely affect the thickness of the watch movement because the shape of the electronic circuit block 10 has a large freedom of design. Reference numeral l1 designates an hour, minute and second hands correcting mechanism operated bythe push-button 3. The backside mechanism 10 and hour, minute, and second hands correcting mechanism 11 are indicated in FIG. 1, especially by the alternate long and short lines respectively.

Reference numeral 12 designates a band which is shown in a fragmental view and reference numeral 13 in FIG. 2 designates a crystal which is not apparent in FIG. 1. Owing to such arrangement as described above, the backside mechanism 10 operated by the stem 2 and the mechanism 11 operated by the push-button 3 are not superimposed on each other and the component parts of said mechanisms are not complicated by each other, so that in no case will the thickness of the watch be determined by said mechanisms 10, 11 or many difficulties will be encountered in the design and manufacture of the watch. v

The push-button3 can be operated by pushing it with the thumb T while holding immovably the case by the forefinger or middle finger F at a portion between the l and 2 oclock positions of the dial, as shown in FIG.-

1. Namely, the push-button can be easily operated, with the hand and arm of the wearer in their natural positions, and the fact that no operating member is present at the portion of the case contacted by the forefinger or, middle finger F, further facilitates the operation of the push-button. Furthermore, as may be understood from FIG. 1, the appearance of the case does not give a feeling of unbalance which the case would otherwise give due to concentration of the operating members.

It is also to be noted that the arrangement of the stem 2 and the push-button 3 as in the embodiment shown enables the cell 5 and the balance 6 to be disposed centrally of the case 1 distant from the opposite sides of FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the case asviewed in the direction of the.line Il-II of FIG. 1.

A case 1 of the wrist watch shown has a stem 2 at the 3 o'clock position of a dial (not shown), by which setting of hands, quick correction of a calendar, and opensaid case, which are elements which generally prevent the reduction in thickness of electronic watches (or determine the thickness of electronic watches). In addition, since the backside mechanism 10 operated by the stem and the mechanism 11 operated by the pushbutton are not superimposed on each other, it becomes possible to locate the push-button 3 close to the crystal. This enables the oblique surfaces 1a, lb to be formed on both sides of the case 1 and the formation of said oblique surfaces brings about the advantage that the watch gives the wearer a feeling of being very small in thickness.

According to the present invention, as described in detail hereinbefore, one operating member, eg the stem, is located near the 3 oclock position of the dial and the other operating member, i.e. the push-button, is located between the 7:30 and 8:30 positions of said dial, whereby the mechanisms respectively operated by said stem and said push-button can be arranged not in superimposed relation to each other and the problems otherwise encountered in the design and manufacture of the watch and in the design of the case due to the complicacy of component parts can be avoided. In addition, the operation of the push-button is easy and the watch has a well balanced, neat appearance. Furthermore, since the component parts having large thicknesses can be arranged remote from the opposite sides of the case, oblique surfaces can be formed on both sides of the backside of the case as required, so that the case may appears much thinner than its actual maximum thickness.

It will be obviously understood that the present invention is applicable, not only to cell-operative wrist watches of the type described but also to cell-operative wrist watch of a type comprising quartz as a standard oscillator and cell-operative wrist watch of a type having an indicator utilizing a liquid crystal. In case of the wrist watch utilizing a liquid crystal for indication, the mechanism operated by an externally operating member is a circuit including switch means, and the operating member may be arranged between the 7:30 and 8:30 positions and at the 3 oclock position in which the upper side of the indicator plane is considered as the 12 oclock position. The present invention can be effectively applied also to the case wherein both of the externally operating members are push-buttons.

I claim:

1. A cell operative wrist watch including two external operating members, one of the members being a push button provided on side surface of watch case between 7:30 and 8:30 positions of dial for correcting, in one touch operation ordinary time hands comprising an hour hand, a minute hand and a second hand, the other of the members being provided on the side surface of said watch case at the 3 oclock position of the dial and manually rotatable to set the ordinary time hands of the watch.

2. A cell operative wrist watch according to ,claim 1 which further includes a cell disposed adjacent to the 12 oclock position of the dial, and a mechanism interconnected to said other operating member to be actuated thereby and arranged planarly in the movement of the wrist watch in such a manner that they are not superimposed on each other.

3. A cell operative wrist watch in accordance with faces adjacent the backside thereof. 

1. A cell operative wrist watch including two external operating members, one of the members being a push button provided on side surface of watch case between 7:30 and 8:30 positions of dial for correcting, in one touch operation ordinary time hands comprising an hour hand, a minute hand and a second hand, the other of the members being provided on the side surface of said watch case at the 3 o''clock position of the dial and manually rotatable to set the ordinary time hands of the watch.
 2. A cell operative wrist watch according to claim 1 which further includes a cell disposed adjacent to the 12 o''clock position of the dial, and a mechanism interconnected to said other operating member to be actuated thereby and arranged planarly in the movement of the wrist watch in such a manner that they are not superimposed on each other.
 3. A cell operative wrist watch in accordance with claim 2 in which said case is formed with oblique surfaces adjacent the backside thereof. 